the gist: the king of degens plays and covers poker, his blog is updated constantly and you will never get one of those whack ass “I just did not feel like blogging this week”.  It really is an insiders view of gambling, reading Pauly’s archives will keep you busy for weeks.

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I just spent the last few hours doing what I think a lot of casual gamblers do, though I sometimes am not so casual.  Between about 4 sites I played between 10-20 and 50-100.  I won every place I played.  I was running fairly decent.  Funny side affect of the WSOP is that you come home ready to crush souls because you are so pissed that you once again did not achieve your dream (though I am not really sure that winning the WSOP is my dream but that is another story). 

Instead of playing against another human beings intelligence I figured I was up about 3k so I played a little BlackJack.  I was down about 1k at one point and then got even and left.

That right there folks is how a lot of people gamble, their decisions are not based on that many factors other than where they have the most fun.  At no point playing BlackJack did I feel like I was getting a fair shake (even when I was even).  People gamble to escape their reality and provide a little excitement on an otherwise uneventful night.  If I had lost at either really nothing would be different, because the amount of money I would have lost would not have changed my life.

For the vast majority of poker players (and dare I say online BlackJack players) that is the case.

As many people know there is a scandal involving UltimateBet and cheating on their site.  Most of the scandal predates the current management and as a consultant for UB at the time I decided to contribute some thoughts.  And then wow! So let me start from the beginning and maybe that will help.  At no point in this discussion will I ever condone cheating or cheaters.  As far as I am concerned I really hope they catch whoever it is behind all of this.  I have told this story many times in this blog and elsewhere but just for ease I will retell it.

In the 2nd year of the WSOP I played in the Aruba event after winning 3 aruba seats.  I played poker locally for many years but this was the first time I had ever had some success in tournaments.  This started my online bankroll and I met many of the people I still call friends today.  That next year would see me winning I believe it was 10 Aruba seats, I am not sure the number really matters at this point.  Once you had one the rest were given to you in cash so that was 90k.  I was also a bit ahead of the curve of the cash games but I was certainly no super baller, at that time I played a lot of 15-30 limit (6 tables and such) on Party and had some really good runs.  In the 2004 WSOP I went fairly deep (about 150 or so), when I busted out I was invited to a party where I met Annie Duke.  Let me back up a bit.  After Aruba I was doing well online, enough to see that something very promising could happen for me in poker.  It was also clear that the business side of things would need some people to help manage things.  As such I pitched a system to PokerStars first (on the Poker Stars cruise), Full tilt second (in Reno of that year) and ultimately to Annie Duke at this party.  Annie was very intrigued about my ideas on how to treat the best customers the best and many of my ideas regarding tournament structures and how the games might be a bit better.  It was also obvious that UB would have an overlay in their Aruba tournament that year and so I proposed that I would take a number of seats in exchange for my ideas and because I was playing most of the WPT and WSOP at this time I would become an affiliate of UB, essentially investing all of the proceeds from the seats I would sell to well known players into promotions for this program.  The idea was a monster hit, this was the early days of rakeback when no one really even knew what it would be called.  I certainly did not invent rakeback but I was on the ground floor on what would be a trend of good value to poker players for the future.

From the time I met Annie to approximately May of the following year it was a series of disasters.  The big games on UB were filling up and that was a direct result of a lot of my hard work with my affiliate stuff.  Politically though within UB there were a ton of issues that were unrelated to my success, also players did not just want to play UB they wanted to play other sites and wanted to know if I could get them similar deals at those places.  When it came time for UB and I to come to another agreement their was not an overlay in the upcoming tournament and I think secretly people did not see a point in paying me as both a consultant and an affiliate any longer.  At this point I hardly knew anyone at all other than Annie Duke, I only met Russ Hamilton once in Los Angeles.  So for about 9 months to a year I helped out with the tournament schedule and some general promotion ideas.  Meanwhile I knew virtually no one and I certainly had no inside access to anything really.  I did not need any of that, my players were generating a significant portion of the rake for UB and already that was providing me with a decent income.  Adding additional rooms would only help that, they were not crazy that I would not be exclusive to them anymore but without paying me as a consultant I was essentially a free agent.

One thing that has come up is “did Beanie have success at other sites”, the two other sites I have had success at are Party Poker and Bodog, with Bodog being by far the bigger of the two.  I also won my 2004 WSOP seat on PokerStars.  UB and Bodog were my main sites, Bodog for limit poker and UB for tournaments.

Another thing that people are misunderstanding is when I said that I send multiple transactions a day to people I do not even know.  Which of course is a reference to rakeback and the fact that most of these customers are not people that I have met.  So I hope that helps on that particular part.  I do in fact trade with a lot of players online but likely not much more than any other high stakes player.  I think for the average guy my transactions would be wild but to a rakeback affiliate or another high stakes player it would be very normal.

Over the course of the next 3-4 years I got to know Russ Hamilton, not so much regarding UB but more poker deals in general.  You have to remember that I had little access at this point, I was just a guy from Minnesota.  Russ has become a good friend within poker, we have really never had any significant business dealings, I sort of use him as a mentor within the poker business.  When I quit consulting with UB that virtually ended my relationship with Annie Duke and we have hardly spoken since then. 

Over time UB went from my biggest program to 4th or 5th which was just based on customer demand.  I now maintain a relationship with the new management but I have very little access.  This was brought up because I mentioned that I visited Costa Rica to see UB in May.  So did about 20 other affiliates including Nat Arem.  I am not trying to throw Nat Arem under the bus because in my eyes Nat is an online poker superhero for what he did with the AP scandal.  I just point it out in an effort to say that I was not on some covert mission or part of some monster cover up because I understand that for most people this whole world of online poker is a bit foreign.

Also I quit posting in the thread on 2+2 because there really is no benefit for me (and also people in the thread asked me to stop, so I did).  I will post a link to the thread at the bottom. 

Some other tidbits:

I know nothing of the account -Fred- and have no idea who the owner is, at the WSOP I met Fred David but I never recieved a transfer from that account, my understanding is the same as Freddy Deeb’s that it is just a management account.  I have no information on that account at all or Fred David’s role at UB at the time, or if he even had one.  Whether that is all just big a coincidence or not is not something I have information on but I will be happy to share whatever comes to light.

dont-trust-paul-nobles.com was a site put up by someone that I had a business dispute over.  It was covered a bit on p5’s and within days of that site being put up the matter was resolved and the site got taken down.  It is sort of a long uninteresting story, I am pretty sure the guy that put up the site regrets dealing in that manor as he has become very successful in other endeavors.  I was supposed to get that URL and a few others as part of the agreement we settled on but I have been lazy about transfering them over.

In closing I will still follow the thread on 2+2 and try to address people’s concerns and if anything comes to light maybe I will pass it on to Nat or post it here.  There is really no equity for me in coming to the defense of anyone, even people who have treated me well because people want answers and I can not give them.  I had very little access back then and even less now.  For me to be viewed in any way shape or form as condoning cheating or trying to divert people’s attention from the scandal was never my intent, so to any extent that happened I would like to sincerely apologize.  Here is the link to the thread on 2+2.

I have written about Nick in the past and I likely will write about him a lot more.  He runs cardschat.com which is likely the best run forum online.  The classic sniveling and arguments that typically make up a poker forum do not happen at CC.  Most online forums begin as a community but then as they become more popular negativity begins to take over as a disconnect happens between users.  CardsChat is a reflection of Nick, he is pretty low key and that is how his forums are.

Nick is also 19, he can not even get into a bar and in case you have not figured it out he has been running things since he was about 15.  I do not know about you guys but when I was 15 I was thinking about who I was going to take to the homecoming dance.

It is not uncommon in poker for young people to do well because the game requires a fresh mind.  Looking at the results from every major tournament you can see what I mean.  In the poker industry however young people have not historically done well.  Part of the reason is that there are a lot of negotiations that need to happen.  In Nick’s case though he has a thriving community that is loyal to his cause, card rooms see that and want to be a part of it.  Nick does not need to yell, he let’s his actions do the talking.

As you can obviously tell I am impressed.  Nick is a tireless worker and his blogs and poker strategy sections are some of the best on the internet.  Unlike a lot of things in this industry where people pay each other to recommend them, this is unsolicited.  Virtually everyone in my family and everyone I know has heard about Nick.  If you are looking for a great poker site that is refreshingly low key in a world of flash banners and stupid prop bets check out www.cardschat.com.

On the NioNio scandal.  It is sort of interesting because I was in Costa Rica not but 2 days ago and met with officials from UB.  It seems odd that they would announce it 2 days later and not mention that to us when we were there.  Oh well, I doubt it will be anything too earth shattering but I bet the games on UB are getting really good with all the good players leaving.

Speaking of that, poker time.